n of business
will help you to get rid of it, or where nobody has time to care whether
you get rid of it or not.

And let _business_ stay where it belongs. Do not interrupt social claims
with its speculations; nor drag the counting-room into the parlor.
There are some men with whom business is a disease; they are never easy
with it and never rid of it. Thus, perhaps, they acquire a reputation
for smartness and enterprise; but they do it, it is to be feared, by
putting aside other and more sacred claims.

Nor let him who is the genial companion abroad, be the morose boarder in
his own house, reserving his vivacity for society and the lees for the
fireside. It is a great deal better to be like the stream that is good
and welcome wherever it flows, but is sure to be fresh at its source.
Indeed, there are men who are made up of foam, and sparkle, and who
circulate in society, but contribute nothing to the necessaries of life,
and are returned empty. It is an unfortunate gift that cheers the world
outdoors, but casts only a dreary shadow inside.

Of course, in speaking of the influence of dispositions in making home
attractive, I would include the duty of those who stay at home as well
as of those who go abroad, and that self-sacrifice and kind hearts
should be found as well as brought there. Indeed, if time would allow me
to make a theme of what now can be only a hint, I should dwell largely
upon _woman's_ influence in this matter.

But home is to be rendered attractive not only by the disposition, but
by the customs of its inmates. It must be a place to live, not merely to
eat and sleep in; a place where we can find entertainment, and not
always leave in search of it. It is really a monstrous folly, this
fashionable treatment of home, which leads people to abandon it almost
every night in pursuit of pleasure, or else to sweep it with a rout,
which considers a household evening very dull, and makes Sunday a day
for sleeping and yawning. The central idea of home is _stability_, and
this has much less chance to be realized in the city than in the
country. In the latter, old forms and landmarks are not so liable to
interruption, and the slow process of time works instead of the hand of
innovation. But in a city, where a man emigrates before he has fairly
settled, and where many move with every May-day, the idea of a homestead
is almost obsolete. Elegance, solidity, venerable associations, none of
these can resist the march